joeygoldnheart

Joey Gold'n Heart

 

ILR # 291483

male  b. 10-12-2016

Eagles' Nest' Americus (aka "Bull") x Rosa O'Joy

 

click on the photo to see more pictures of Joey on ipernity

 

Joey has truly exceptional bone and muscle, an inquisitive, intelligent mind, surprising agility and jaw-dropping endurance ... all with an excellent classic coat icing his physical cake. We would have expected Joey to mature around 44" (both parents are in that ballpark), but his dam developed a molar abscess while Joey was still in utero, and that definitely set back Joey's birth size and subsequent growth. Fortunately he is male, and that setback will not affect his offspring.

Joey came to us rather by accident. He was a single baby, then sold with his mother to people who were entirely new-to-llamas. Their llama mentor recognized the potential for trouble and connected them with us, and — only because we were resoundingly impressed with Joey — we agreed to buy Joey and work with him before his rather forward and sometimes out-of-control behavior progressed to dangerous.

It took a bit of time, but Joey has finally got it straight that self-control is a virtue ... except in the breeding pen. We've given him a lot of chances to improve and as recently as 2022 we thought we'd turned a corner, but even our level of skill and savvy isn't (yet) enough. Once Joey fixates on something, he HAS to have it and his hard-earned self-control crumbles. He's not a problem in the pasture or in any other situation, and in fact is easier to deal with than most llamas in other sitautions. We had reluctantly decided to be proactive and castrate Joey after fly season 2023, but other unexpected changes in our herds' genetic options have us back to brainstorming outside-the-box solutions.

Intact or gelded, Joey is still extra-special to us because he is a grandson of Gold'n Hawk, who left us all too soon, and with no offspring. Joey inherited every one of Hawk's unique and desireable qualities that we had very much hoped to add to our breeding herd, and that's not insignificant — the odds of getting even one llama with all of these characteristics when breeding sustainable numbers is low; the likelihood of getting that same llama two generations later is truly miniscule.

Joey came with his call name (Joey) and a partially-complete registration form, leaving us to flesh out a suitable registered name. "Gold'n Heart" perfectly reflects Joey's kind soul, and we chose the spelling to honor his beloved grandsire (who was also definitely not gold-colored).

Meet Joey's offspring: